Grimm and Donovan fight over pardons, deportations in first debate

Dan Donovan seen while he was Staten Island district attorney. (Julie Jacobson/AP)

Rep. Daniel Donovan and ex-Rep. Michael Grimm started talking over one another 56 seconds after the first question in their first debate had been asked — and from then on, they rarely stopped.

The two Republicans faced off in a debate as bitter as the primary between them for a Staten Island congressional seat Monday at the studios of WABC Radio — Donovan slamming Grimm, who resigned in 2014 after pleading guilty to tax evasion, as an ex-con who lied to the voters and was looking for a post-prison way onto the public payroll, and Grimm ripping Donovan, who has been endorsed by President Trump, as a do-nothing congressman who was too soft on issues like banning sanctuary cities.

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Over the course of a crosstalk-filled hour, each accused the other of not being a big enough supporter of the President.

“Somebody who didn’t pay his federal taxes now wants a federal job from us on taxpayer money, and wants a federal pension,” Donovan said before being cut off by Grimm in one exchange typical of the entire affair’s tenor.

“Let me tell you why that’s rich. Let me tell you why that’s rich,” Grimm said, before referencing a conversation the pair had when Grimm decided to enter the race. “You know what he told me when I said I was going to primary him? ‘Can you please just give me two more years? My daughter is getting older and I’m going to retire.’ ”

“I never said that,” Donovan said over Grimm. “I never said that.”

Michael Grimm arrives ahead of his sentencing for aiding in filing a false tax return, at federal court in Brooklyn in July 2015. (Kevin Hagen/AP)

The pair even feuded about whether Donovan had sought to help Grimm request a presidential pardon. Like most feuds among Staten Island Republicans, this one was centered around former congressman and former Borough President Guy Molinari — Grimm’s political godfather and someone Donovan considered a friend, as he put it, “before he betrayed me.”

Grimm said he went to Donovan’s home prior to announcing his run, because Molinari had told him that Donovan had reached out to Trump about a pardon.

“You were the one that said that you told the President that a Marine was wrongfully convicted and needed his help,” Grimm said.

“That is not true — here’s what I told the president. Because Guy Molinari used to be a friend. Guy Molinari used to be a friend,” Donovan began to respond.

“You didn’t say that right to my face? You didn’t say that right to my face, at your house?” Grimm shot back.

“No. I didn’t say that,” Donovan responded.

“You’re lying,” Grimm said.

But Donovan said he’d reached out about the pardon at Molinari’s request, bringing it up during an Air Force One ride with Trump en route to Long Island.

“I told him that a fellow Marine, Guy Molinari, was looking to seek a pardon for Michael. And the President asked, ‘Did Guy Molinari support me?’” Donovan said. “And I said no, he was a Never Trumper. Ok, the President does not care to hear this at all. His staff said tell him to call the pardon office, and I gave Michael the number of the pardon office.”

The two couldn’t even agree on how they came to be discussing the matter in Donovan’s home — Grimm insisting he was invited, and Donovan saying Grimm texted him “all day” to get asked over.

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Just as the pair broke from most New York City politicos in their support of Trump — who remains popular in the district — they did as well in their defense of immigration and military officials who arrested an undocumented pizza delivery man, Pablo Villavicencio. After Donovan defended ICE and the military officials involved, Grimm pointed to past statements from Donovan in which he said he didn’t support deporting those who hadn’t committed a crime, saying there should be a path to citizenship.

“So he believes in a pathway to citizenship, yet he says he’s tougher on border security than I am?” Grimm said. “It’s absolutely ridiculous.”

But Grimm himself has admittedly hired workers just like Villavicencio — frequently trying to downplay his federal conviction by saying he’d simply hired undocumented workers off-the-books.

“I think I’m the best position because I have the experience, I had to live through it. It was a horrible ordeal,” Grimm said when asked whether he was in a position to judge Villavicencio. “When you have the lowest skill jobs and you pay minimum wage, no one else shows up….Go to any small restaurant throughout this city, and you’re going to have undocumented workers in the kitchen. Because Americans unfortunately don’t show up for those jobs anymore.”

Grimm said the country needed a “robust guest worker” program for such jobs, as well as the use of e-verify to prove employees are citizens.

“I think what he just said is anybody who wants to be in business, in the restaurant business, has to commit a crime,” Donovan said. “We have now somebody who is saying that we should verify every worker in a restaurant when he hired people who are here illegally and he didn’t verify it.”